The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 172 - 66: The Best Basketball Game_2
At that time, the head coach of the Chicago Bulls was Dick Motta, with core players Bob Love and Jerry Sloan, and an unknown point guard named Rick Adelman.
As Jordan joined the Bulls, Durham’s commentary grew increasingly passionate, and by the fourth quarter, his tone and pitch had reached their peak.
"Michael’s breakthrough, charging into the Trail Blazers’ basket, dodging in the air, evading two defenders, scoring on a layup! Woh! No one can stop him! Michael, Michael Jordan!"
"But the Bulls mustn’t be careless, Portland’s counterattack comes swiftly... God, Sonny Gan, like a ferocious tiger, receives Drexler’s pass, barges through two defenders, scores the layup and draws the foul... he’s going to shoot free throws... this guy is really like a tank, who can stop him?"
"Gan’s additional free throw doesn’t hit, but he charges to the basket to grab the offensive rebound, passes to Drexler, and Drexler leaps to slam dunk! Four points in one play, the Chicago Bulls are in trouble."
"They still have to go to Michael, Michael accelerates, breaks through, Gan blocks him... no... woh... still makes it..."
The radio listeners following the game were puzzled; was the ball blocked or did it make it in?
Everything on the court happened so fast, Durham hadn’t quite grasped the situation, Jordan’s attempted layup was indeed blocked by Gan Guoyang.
But the ball didn’t leave his hand, Jordan managed to throw it out before landing, the ball grazed the backboard and bounced into the hoop.
The live audience could hardly remember how many times in the fourth quarter Jordan had done this, dodging in the air, hanging, altering the shot, and even if blocked, still making the shot.
It was then that people truly understood why Jordan’s sneakers are called Air Jordan, because he really is a man who soars through the air.
But can a man really soar over skyscrapers?
Jordan put on a superhuman performance, but looking at the score, 115:109, the difference was still six points, unchanged since the start of the fourth quarter.
Gan Guoyang’s offensive rebounds in attack, and Jordan’s hang time in mid-air alike, always managed to give themselves another chance to score.
Jones, Corzine, and Steve Johnson felt like they were about to be crushed to death by Gan Guoyang; his judgment for the ball’s landing, his fierce charge, and swift speed made the Bulls’ interior defense look like a bunch of people with dementia.
Jordan personally engaged in the skirmishes for defensive rebounds, only to be sent flying by Gan Guoyang and crashing hard to the ground.
The referee didn’t blow the whistle, Gan Guoyang took the ball and drove to the basket; facing two Bulls players, he scored the layup as both evaded, not daring to defend him any longer.
After getting up, Jordan didn’t complain to the referee, but instead shouted to his teammates, "Why didn’t you defend? Why didn’t you block him? Just watching him score the layup?"
Jones replied helplessly, "If we go up to defend, it will just add another foul; he’s too strong."
Jordan helplessly shook his head, Jones was right, Gan Guoyang was an unstoppable scoring machine under the basket.
Gan, as the center, wasn’t competing with Jordan in controlling the ball on offense, but instead kept getting chances to drive to the basket through teamwork.
Pick-and-rolls, quick cuts, driving into the paint after receiving the ball, and direct assaults on the rim after grabbing offensive rebounds.
Gan Guoyang had better teammates; he didn’t need to handle the ball, didn’t have to worry about a lack of ball movement, his role was to finish—Drexler finally normalized towards the end, constantly supporting Gan Guoyang with passes.
At the finishing stage, even though Gan Guoyang had skillful hook shots and swift turnaround jumpers, he didn’t use them; instead, he brought the game into a bloody slaughterhouse like a savage Tarzan.
Apart from Michael Jordan, the others found it difficult to adapt to the high-speed, high-intensity, high-impact game, and the Bulls’ interior players moaned incessantly.
They realized the best way to deal with Gan Guoyang was to commit fouls, this number 11 with yellow skin possessed a kind of demoralizing magic.
In his relentless attacks, you’ve been pushed aside time and again; you think you are among the strongest in the world, but in the face of his impact, you feel as powerless as a patient.
Even more debilitating was the fact that you didn’t know when it would end; his energy and noise seemed endless, and the game had entered a suffocating, heated atmosphere.
You would think: the game shouldn’t be like this, I don’t fucking want to continue like this, I should pull him down.
Jones only had a similar feeling when facing Moses Malone, very frustrated, and in the end could only vent his depression with fouls.
This season, Moses could get an average of 11 free throw attempts per game, and last season he got a total of 727 free throw opportunities, hitting 523 of them.
In contrast, Jabbar averaged only 4.9 free throw attempts per game, and after joining the Lakers, he never got more than 8 attempts.
Jones knew that if Gan kept playing this way, it would be easy for him to surpass Moses with his free-throw percentage.
And Jones didn’t want to add to Gan Guoyang’s free throws any further; near the end of the fourth quarter, he already had five fouls and was about to be ejected.
But when Gan Guoyang grabbed his seventh offensive rebound over Jones’ head, Jones finally couldn’t take it anymore, he didn’t want to continue like this.
When Gan Guoyang was going for the layup, Jones pushed him directly, yet Gan Guoyang wasn’t brought down, he just staggered a bit, casually placing the ball in the basket.
